Common Core Standard

Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.

Purpose

To provide information and resources that help students to find appropriate information quickly.

Scaffolds

Look here (Getting Started) for strategies that will help you to try out new technology and programs.

Structure of Workshop

This workshop provides strategies for solving problems and strategies for finding information quickly. Following these strategies is a series of problems and information which allows the user to practice these skills.

Portfolio

Solve some problems or find information. Time yourself and see how quickly you can find what you need online. Some possibly true or false statements are linked at the bottom of this page.

Problem Solving Strategies


http://www.virtualsalt.com/crebook3.htm
This is one of the best summaries of how to solve problems around. It's Web 1.0 (aka old, 1998), so it doesn't have formatting or pictures, but it succinctly identifies what problems are and many different ways of thinking about them. Read this one carefully and slowly, because it is dense with information.

Key Ideas about Problem Solving

These ideas are defined and explained in the webpage cited above.

  • What is a Problem?
  • The Importance of Goals in Problem Solving
  • What is a Solution?
  • General Guidelines for Problem Solving
  • Discussion of the Problem Solving Guidelines

Finding Information Online


Use Search strategies.

Look for User Forums

Look for Cheatsheets


Using Wikipedia

While Wikipedia is not a great resource for academic writing because the text in wikipedia may not always be reliable, for the most part Wikipedia is a good starting point. Each Wikipedia article has a table of contents that gives you a preview of what types of information are on the page. Not only is there text about something, but there are also references in many articles as well as links to relevant websites that can help you get more information. You can find references and links at the bottom of each Wikipedia page.

Use Google Scholar

http://scholar.google.com/
Along with the Search strategies, you can add ".pdf" to your search to get downloadable pdfs instead of just references to inaccessible articles. Downloadable pdfs are nice to have because you can keep them on your computer for future research.
Use School/Public Library Data Bases
If you have access to academic data bases, these can provide you with lots of information relating to academic research.

Check more than one resource to verify the information you are finding. So much of the web is opinionated speculation, so check several unrelated sources (news, blogs, scholarly publications, etc.).

Random ideas: True or false?

Here are some random things you might enjoy finding!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090305125812AAAtZHx

http://www.hemmy.net/2006/04/30/50-interesting-facts/